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she swept the crimson petals, that had fallen to the table, into her hand. their delicacy felt light, as they overflowed the space permitted.

she looked up from her hand and her gaze fell on him sitting across the room. he was reading, engrossed in his book – words that tangled a web of a story.

these petals were them she realized. every year they’d been “them” was represented here in the palm of her hand. every crushing, every building up, every falling, every changing of seasons & paths, every wilt. she looked at them again. she knew they were just as fragile as the red flesh of flowers. this last year had proved that repeatedly.

she looked at him again and smiled. she loved him more than he knew, more than she could begin to express in words or art. he looked up from his book and caught her eye, asked if she needed him. she said no, but her heart said always.

she turned her hand and watched as the petals tumbled gracefully back to the table. ‘perhaps a few days more here isn’t such a bad thing.’ she thought.

Saturday Stories: A (weekly) feature on PrudyChick.com. All stories are written by Prudence Landis [unless otherwise noted as a guest post]. Photo credit: Prudence Landis

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Monday marks 13 years of marriage. Over this last year we’ve been reminded how delicate love & marriage is. I love this man more than simple or complex words could express. He is not only my better half, but makes me better in turn. He has been my best friend for 17 years and I am delighted to call myself his wife.
Happy anniversary my beloved. ♥

Twelve and a half years ago I said I do one of the most remarkable men alive. Over the last twelve years we’ve grown, changed, become better versions of ourselves, and understand understand that this transformation is far from over. He is my favorite thing.

0859 12 1/2 years of marriage
0860 A Friday on a Tuesday
0861 When sleep finally comes
0862 A trip to Target and remembering to get everything I needed to
0863 Being seen

On May 26th my husband and I celebrated 12 years of marriage. Marriage is nothing like I expected. It isn’t the romantic comedy or the Jane Austen fairy tale. In ways it’s so much more.

To help celebrate my friend Sarah’s 30th birthday this month I am joining her and 30 other writers sharing 30 things. Since I am about to celebrate my anniversary, I wanted to share 30 things about marriage. The beautiful and the unexpected.

happy anniversary my beloved!!

Do you remember our first Valentine’s? The very first one, when this relationship between you and I had literally just started 11 days before hand. How could I know that night that 16 years later we’d be married, creating a life, falling deeper in love. I burnt myself that night. I was so nervous about making dinner for you the first time. I don’t think I even told you. I still remember making stuffed shells and garlic bread. Going to see the re-launch of the first Star Wars. Maybe we should recreate that night some time.

I know I say this often, but you are my favorite. Thank you for allowing me to stretch and learn. To test my wings and the room I’ve needed to trust in hope again. Thank you for being solid rock under my feet when I felt and believed everything else was sinking. Thank you for believing me me, and sending me away.

I love you more than I can put into words. I love the way you make me laugh and how you make me smile. I love that we’re building a future together, and I can’t wait to see what it brings. I love this beautiful dance.

There is a misconception out there that when you’re married it’s like being out on a date all the time.

Okay, maybe it’s not a widely believed misconception and maybe it was just me.

After several years of marriage I realized how vital {yes vital to the health of your marriage, your own individual selves, & if you have children them as well} dates with Shawn were. I remember telling him that we needed to make it a practice. We don’t have dates every single week, but we try.

Today I’m sharing with (Moxie)Mandie one of my favorite dates with Shawn.

That’s how long we’ve been married. I didn’t realize how married life would turn out. How much more amazingly awesome it has become since those first few months when the honeymoon effect was still swirling around us.

Marriage has become so much more than I ever gave it credit for. Being his wife and him my husband is the greatest gift I’ve ever been given.

Those first months were extraordinary…our little apartment, learning to live with another human being, the outside events that became part of the foundation with which we built upon. But I could never give up the marriage we have now to get the honeymoon effect back.

Today I get to hang over at Katie’s sharing a bit of our marriage story. She’s doing a series all week so I encourage you to check the rest of her peeps out.

They say it’s good for you. The sea salted air. That the ions help make you healthy & happy. And I could have stayed there hours more to be honest. To lie on a quilt as the wind danced through my hair.

We celebrated 11 years of Mr. & Mrs. on Saturday, with a trip to San Diego for a few days. We commented that overcast & low 60°’s in San Diego beats 110° & sunny skies in Phoenix any day. (15.55° vs. 43,33°C)

For what are you thankful for?

I make his eggs every week. A marriage of eggs & milk whisked with taco seasoned ground turkey & cheese. It’s a little thing, but it’s a little something I can do for him so he isn’t scrambling to find breakfast before work.

If I ever forget to say it, I love you. Thank you for unloading the dishwasher and cleaning up after dinners and taking out the trash. For always asking if I need help, even knowing my tendency to say “I’m good, I don’t need any help.” Thank you for being my balance. Literally my better half.

I thank God daily for this gift of you in my life; and the grace we have and get to make it work.

I love you my beloved!!
Happy Valentine’s Day!

Honestly, some days I don’t feel a maddening sense of love for my husband. Please don’t misunderstand me, I love him every day around the world and back and to the furthest reaches of the heavens and back elebinty billion times. But there always isn’t a rush of love that bowls me over like a Weeble in the hands of an excited toddler.

But some mornings when I wake up, the growth of my love for him seems tangible. When my heart feels as if the love inside will cause it to explode.

Moments in time experienced, that I tuck away. I secret them away in my heart.

Today is one of those days. Where work beckons, but my heart would rather be knitted next to his. When his picture stirs up sappy, deep feelings and I realize I love him more than mere words could express and that the love I felt yesterday was miniscule compared to what I feel for him today.

Have you expressed your love to your beloved today? ♥

I laid in bed Wednesday night my brain slowly drifting towards dream land. Literally giddy over that fact that Shawn and I would celebrate ten years of marriage the next day. I kicked my feet like a child exuberant over a trip to Disneyland.

I recalled that this was probably similar to what I felt like ten years ago in a hotel room sleeping with my two best girlfriends anticipating the next day.

And as I laid there my brain getting heavier with sleep, my thoughts cried out in thankfulness to God. I know we wouldn’t be where we are at if it weren’t for His grace.

Grace to forgive and to apologize. Grace to make allowances for each others faults, and even grace for our own faults.

We don’t have a perfect marriage, far from it; but it’s a beautiful marriage.

It is one that we daily try to plant grace, and allow it to be fruitful.

When we got married I only saw the lifetime. I never considered the years that make up the in between – the ten, the three, the 28. I only saw spending the rest of my life with him. As we look through the telescope at another ten years and onto 30 more, we will only arrive at that place with grace wrapped around our wrists leading us forward.

Ten years that number seems impossible. Yet ten ago today became the happiest day of my life. Dressed in white with purple toes, and blue flowers in my hair – all I wanted was to be his wife. The wait, hours that dragged by as I waited for the clock to strike. Checking for perfectly red lips in the mirror and tapping nails. My feet were never cold and neither fear nor apprehension were my bedfellows. I wanted to marry this man and I was completely unashamed.

A remix of Sarah Brightman’s This Love filled the pre-summer warm air and my anticipation grew as I made my way down the aisle. I nearly forgot to look at him. I just wanted to be with him. There he stood handsome, with a heart full of love just for me.

With veil covered face I pledged my love to him through tears of joy – it was an ugly cry with puckered bottom lip. This was the husband I’d prayed for.

Ten years later I still pledge that love, and he his to me. That this man loves me – loves me more than the day we wed still brings tears to my eyes.

We began our journey with the seal of a kiss, and a declaration that he was taking me home.

I am my beloveds and my beloved is mine.

This year Shawn and I will celebrate being a couple 14 years and our tenth anniversary. We’ve fought for our marriage, for our couplehood. In truth the years haven’t necessarily come easily.

As with any relationship you work to make it work. Each person sacrifices their will for the others. When done right it’s a beautiful dance.

I’m not always the perfect dance partner and neither is he. We do our best.

Without a doubt I’d rather have no one else as we move across the dance floor. He is the only one I ever want to come home to. The one I want to envelope me, and hold me after a long day. He’s the one I want to celebrate with. The one I’d always rather be with.

I love the way he makes me laugh, and his smile [what first cause my heart to skip and my breath to sigh] still sends me into a whirlpool. After 14 years he can still make me melt into a puddle.

Shawn and I dated 4 years, 3 months, 23 days. We’ve been married for 9 years, 5 months, 15 days.

I’m still learning how to love him.

It’s not something I think I’ll ever have figured out. In fact I hope I never do.

My Love Language is Affirmation. Words of love and appreciation do far more than cleaning the house. 😉

Shawn’s Love Language is Time. I don’t even need to read the book to know that.

So I’m learning. Learning to not be selfish with my personal time and wants. Learning to put down my phone and it’s Twitter capabilities. Learning to close my laptop with it’s Twitter, blog reading, blog writing, Hulu watching capabilities.

Because love is afterall…putting aside your wants for the desires for those of someone else.

There is a lot going on in our lives. There has been. Situations that require me to be a wife and a listener of him before I’m a tweeter, blogger, show watcher. Because he is more important than all of you and I’m not going to apologize for that.

Pray that God teaches me how to be a better wife to Shawn. That I’m less selfish.

What are ways you’re still learning to love your spouse if your married, if not do you pray for your future spouse and how you can be the wife/husband God desires you to be?

I don’t usually spend my Monday nights in hospital surgery waiting rooms. Yet, here I sit a Starbucks latte at hand & my husband under anesthesia having an appendectomy.

Over the past week he’s had abdominal pain. Not severe but enough for him to take note. After seeing our PCP on Saturday who didn’t think it was his appendix because of the lack of severe pain, but smart enough to send him for a CT Scan – he was told to go to the ER immediately.

As I look back, considering disappointments and the fact that it’s been 6 days since he started having pain I can’t help but see God’s hand and glorious faithfulness.

As I sit here typing all this out on a tiny keyboard, his wedding band on my necklace I feel peace. With my epic battle between fear and trust this year I was situated to give into fear. There is nothing I could do though. His prognosis, his pain – all in God’s hands.

Choosing trust over fear is not easy. It is only with His help that I can even begin to walk this road.

So I wait here. Trusting the surgeon, the anesthesiologist, the surgery all through God. He is in control.

Rejoice with me over God’s glorious faithfulness.

**
Late night edit (11:22 PM AZ): I’ve just gotten home about 15 minutes ago. Excited Chihuahuas greeted me. The surgery went well. Only “complication” was the appendix had wrapped itself around itself. The surgeon had a difficult time getting it to unwrap and get it out, but all was done ﻿laparoscopically. With this I’m going to bed. It’s been a long day. Thank you all again for your prayers.

Thanks also to the wonderful surgeon (Dr. Prebil), anesthesiologist, and nurses at Banner Thunderbird.

I don’t take compliments well. I don’t know why, I just don’t. Which is weird since my Love Language is Affirmation. I don’t know how to respond when complimented. I feel…………weird.

My husband is my greatest fan and the major source of all compliments. He makes me feel loved (see previous paragraph mentioning love language). Shawn leaves for work before I do and is home before I am. In other words there are 10 hours of the day he doesn’t see me. He sees me at the end of the day with worn makeup, flat hair where it’s supposed to be poofy, rumpled clothes. He finds me beautiful. In that moment.

Today (Monday) was one of those days. I was satisfied (settled) with what I’d chosen to wear – which as ladies know can mean going through your entire wardrobe twice before finding something – my skirt probably could have stood to be ironed and my bangs hidden forehead could have definitely been less oily. Yet, Shawn’s response when seeing me was that “I looked good” (husband speak for beautiful).

Shawn’s favorite word for me is fancy. To him everything I do is fancy. I joke with him that I could be in a gunny sack and he’d still think I was fancy.

I may never be able to take compliments, and never think of myself as fancy, but he does and that makes all the difference in the world and makes me feel loved and beautiful.

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about me

Prudence is a 30-something writer who lives in Arizona with her husband Shawn and their chihuahuas Lengua and Zeus. She writes her life, her experiences and her crawl back to hope. Eventually, she hopes to visit India – a place that’s captured her heart without ever stepping foot on the soil.